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Environmental Adaptations: Radiation Tolerance

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Book cover Water Bears: The Biology of Tardigrades

Part of the book series: Zoological Monographs ((ZM,volume 2))

Abstract

Several studies in different species have documented that tardigrades are among the most radiation-tolerant animals on Earth, surviving doses of ionizing radiation on the order of kGy. Both low-LET and high-LET radiation have been used with no apparent differences in the tolerance of the animals. Tolerance to ionizing radiation in tardigrades also seems to be independent of whether the animal has entered a dry anhydrobiotic state or is hydrated with normal activity. However, when exposed to UV radiation, desiccated tardigrades show a higher tolerance than hydrated animals. Recent studies in several species have shown that tardigrade embryos have considerably lower tolerance to ionizing radiation compared to adults, and embryos in the early stage of development are clearly more sensitive to radiation than those in the late developmental stage. The molecular mechanisms behind radiation tolerance in tardigrades are still largely unclear, but available evidence suggests that mechanisms related to both the avoidance of DNA damage and the repair of damage are involved.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that the “Hypsibius dujardini” strain used in most (possibly all) studies on development and stress tolerance referred to in this chapter has recently been redescribed by Gasiorek et al. (2018) as a new species, Hypsibius exemplaris, distinguished from the Hypsibius dujardini sensu stricto.

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Acknowledgements

The current review was financially supported by the Swedish Space Research Board (grant 87/11 to AW).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science and Bioscience, Kristianstad University, Kristianstad, Sweden

    K. Ingemar Jönsson

  2. Department of Radiation Oncology, Division of Molecular and Cellular Oncology, David Geffen school of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Eliana B. Levine

  3. Colscience Institute, Bogotá, Colombia

    Eliana B. Levine

  4. Centre for Radiation Protection Research, Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Andrzej Wojcik & Mats Harms-Ringdahl

  5. Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Siamak Haghdoost

  6. LARIA – CIMAP, University of Caen, Caen, France

    Siamak Haghdoost

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  1. K. Ingemar Jönsson
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Correspondence to K. Ingemar Jönsson .

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  1. Institute of Biological Materials and Biomolecular Systems, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

    Ralph O. Schill

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Jönsson, K.I., Levine, E.B., Wojcik, A., Haghdoost, S., Harms-Ringdahl, M. (2018). Environmental Adaptations: Radiation Tolerance. In: Schill, R. (eds) Water Bears: The Biology of Tardigrades. Zoological Monographs, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95702-9_12

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